Eight days ago, Katie Spotz started rowing across the Atlantic. The Warren Wilson College student has taken on this gargantuan task as a way to raise money for The Blue Planet Run, a San Francisco based nonprofit funding safe drinking water projects for the billion people around the world in need. Well equipped for the adventure — with such items as solar panels and a short-range radios — Spotz is tweeting along the way, sharing up-to-the-minute experiences as she traverses the Atlantic from Senegal to French Guiana — a 2,500-mile journey. Finishing will make 22-year-old Spotz the youngest person to ever row the ocean. Here’s her latest Tweets (140-character messages; for more, go to http://rowforwater.com/media/):
UPDATE: You can now check Katie’s progress whenever you want by clicking “Where’s Katie” on the website. [Sam] 9 hrs ago
In her first week, Katie has averaged just under 1.8mph – ocean rowing is not high speed! http://bit.ly/88S8Ca for her route so far. [Sam] 1 day ago
• Jan 9: “Have been at sea for a week now. A good face scrub and deep conditioner for the hair to celebrate! Yay 7 hrs ago”
• Jan 9: “You know you are tired when you wake up with food all over yourself to realize you fell asleep halfway through your meal. Oops 20 hrs ago”
• Jan 9: “Time to bring out the sprouting kit. Munched my way through all my fresh fruit today 21 hrs ago”
• Jan 10: “New blog post: Just drifting across the ocean? Not exactly! http://rowforwater.com/archives/1203/
Here’s an excerpt: “So, with all the weather considerations, isn’t Katie just drifting across the Atlantic? Does the rowing make any difference at all? You’d better believe it!
“When Katie sleeps, she drifts – it could be any direction at all and, sometimes, she gets lucky and goes in the right direction. But, even then, it’s very very slow. Based on what’s happened so far, if she just dropped her oars and waited to hit land, we might be lucky to see her sometime in 2012. As for where she’d end up, who knows! A perfect example of this was on Wednesday; while asleep overnight, Katie was drifting very slowly to the south, not making any ground towards Cayenne. But then she woke up, got on the oars, and immediately started making significant progress to the west.”
•Jan 11: “It turns out there was a slight problem with Katie’s blogs; that’s why you get three from her today! [Sam]”
7:45 a.m.: New blog post: Day 9 — Moving Along http://rowforwater.com/archives/1215/
7:43 a.m.: New blog post: Day 5 — Life on Liv http://rowforwater.com/archives/1213/
7:41 a.m.: New blog post: Day 2 — Into The Blue http://rowforwater.com/archives/1211/
3:57 a.m.: http://twitpic.com/xn6dt – One of my favorite parts about being on the ocean
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